Gaming Weekly W5: MAG (PS3)
Monday, February 1, 2010Let’s talk a bit about the game MAG, MAG is a MMO Shooter for the Playstation 3 and was developed by Zipper Interactive, whom you might know from games such as SOCOM: U.S Navy Seals-series. The was actually released here in the EU some days ago. The game takes place in the year 2025, in a world where the maintenance of full-scale armed forces has become such a burden that countries around the world has cut their armies down to a minimum, just enough to defend national security. No nations military is allowed to leave its own country’s borders, effectively forcing world peace.
PMC (private military corps) started popping up everywhere and in the end started to attack each other. MAG is about three of these PMC faction : Ravens, SVER and Valor and their battle for supremecy. The player will choose and serve one of these factions, and will be able to switch sides if they want. Each PMC has access to their own unique weapons and skills.
Massive War
MAG is called a MMO because of it’s support of 256 players. Yes it’s correct 256 players on the same battlefield where the players are divided into 8-player squads where 4 of these squads form a platoon, and 4 platoons forming a company. The military chain of command is apparent, each squad is led by a player of high rank. As the game progresses and with frequent gameplay players gets the chance to advance through the ranking system and then gain the ability to participate in direct combat and lead squads.
256 players facing of, 128 men on the same team scattered over enormous maps with a steady framerate, it is surely an awesome technical achievement. What I like about this game is that the massive amount of players must change the mentality of the player: “You are no hero, you are a nobody, you are a meatbag on the front whose only mission is to pushing the front forward.” As you hold the front you might pick off some enemies and gain experience, the experience let’s you unlock weapons and skills.
The problem with this type of game is that even if the chain of command mechanic is awesome like it is it’s heavily dependent on the players personality, if a player that’s a good leader becomes one of the commanders the team might perform well, but it’s also a fact that there are many players out there that just doesn’t care about tactics, then it will become a 128 vs 128 player meatfest, just think about it 256 players running around gunning everything and 1/3 of them snipers. In my eyes this type of game can never actually make it on the consoles, there are just too many non-serious players out there.
I bet that the game will be great if you find a serious squad to play with, or better a whole team that actually works together, I bet it would feel awesome. If people actually take cover and screams orders to each other then the game might have a long-lasting effect for me since I love the serious tactical gameplay. I believe that the atmosphere of the game would be great, alone or with a squad on the battlefield bullets actually raining down on your ass all the time, explosions and tanks everywhere. It might be a really thrilling experience and might be worth trying once the game has settled down a bit. I bet that the game is worth it if you like First Person Shooters and want to feel the fear of war on a bigger scale. I’ll probably get my hand on it after the price goes down a bit, but for now I’ll hold off.
